Media outlets access enhanced multi-platform content at no charge, with alerts when we have new content on issues or from regions you may select. Once we receive the filled out form below, you'll receive a message with the passcode/s. Welcome!

*These fields are required

*Media Outlet name

*Media Outlet City/State

Contact name

Contact phone

*Email address or fax #

*Media Outlet type

Additional (beyond the state you are located in) content that you would like to receive

Newscasts

PNS Daily Newscast - March 19, 2018

Facebook is under the gun for failing to disclose misused data of 50 million Americans during the 2016 election. Also on our Monday rundown: a new study shows e-cigarettes are harmful to teens; and it's Poison Prevention Week – a good time to dispel some myths.

Climate Change to Amplify Economic Inequality in U.S., Says Study

Scientists warn if the U.S. continues business as usual, climate change could lead to the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in the nationís history. (Getty Images)

July 10, 2017

DENVER – Rocky Mountain and Western states could see some benefits as climate change forces people and assets to move away from the nation's hottest regions into more temperate areas, but scientists project economic inequality will increase as the planet warms.

Rutgers University Professor Robert Kopp, co-author of a new study published in the journal Science, says if efforts to reduce climate pollution aren't successful, the poorest third of U.S. counties could lose up to 20 percent of their income.

"And those places in the United States that are already warm tend to be the places that are poorest,” he points out. “So, climate change is going to act as an amplifier of inequality in this country."

Scientists from Rutgers, the University of California-Berkeley and University of Chicago tapped data from 116 climate projections to calculate real-world costs and benefits.

They looked at how agriculture, energy demand and other indicators would be affected by higher temperatures, changing rainfall and rising seas.

Their conclusion: if the U.S. continues on its current path, the nation could see the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in its history.

Kopp says economic opportunity will likely shift to the North and West, with colder and richer counties better able to adapt to – and even benefit in some ways – from temperature increases.

"So, we might expect people and capital to move from those areas that are hardest hit – like the Southeast and lower Midwest – to areas like the North, and the Rocky Mountains, that are comparatively insulated from some of these impacts that we've looked at," he explains.

The group projects for each 1 degree Fahrenheit increase in global temperatures, the U.S. economy could lose nearly 1 percent of its Gross Domestic Product output.

Kopp looks for these new metrics to be used to help manage climate change as an economic risk in much the same way the Federal Reserve uses interest rates to manage the risk of recession.